Choosing an eCommerce platform is often a stressful and time-consuming endeavor. From functionality to customization and overall pricing, it’s important to understand how each factor will affect your project and business.
eBook
BigCommerce vs Shopify: Everything You Need to Know
Although there's never a one-size-fits-all solution, we often find BigCommerce accommodates the needs of many growing, mid-marketing and enterprise retailers. With more built-in features than most other leading platforms, BigCommerce allows your business to scale over time.
If you're interested in the platform and are looking for pricing information, we've broken out plans and details below to help identify the right fit for your business.
BigCommerce Pricing Plans
BigCommerce offers four pricing plans: Standard, Plus, Pro and Enterprise. BigCommerce pricing changes based on each plan. Though pricing and features vary, all plans include the following benefits.
- Unlimited product count and file storage bandwidth
- Real-time shipping quotes
- Responsive website functionality
- Optimized one-page checkout
- No transaction fees
- 24/7 live customer support
Pricing Plans
Standard Plan
$29.95 per month (or $359 per year)
Referred to as the “entry level” plan, the Standard Plan starts at $29.95 per month and is designed for online store with sales volumes under $50,000 per year. The entry-level is an ideal fit for small eCommerce sites to get started online and scale as they grow.
This plan lacks a few advanced features, such as abandoned cart recovery and the ability to create groups and segments. If you need this functionality but fall into the Standard Plan category, we recommend connecting directly with a BigCommerce rep to discuss ways they can help.
Plus Plan
$79.95 per month (or $959 per year)
Built for the “medium online store," this plan starts at $75.95 per month for businesses that generate up to $150,000 in revenue a year.
This plan includes advanced features, such as abandoned cart recovery and customizable grouping capabilities. This functionality can help you segment your audiences and personalize their shopping experiences/marketing messaging.
Pro Plan
$249.95 per month (or $2,999 per year)
If your online store is generating sales between $150,000 and $1,000,000 per year, the Pro Plan is where you need to be.
When using the Pro Plan, businesses generating up to $400,000 will pay a rate of $249.95 per month. However, if you generate more than $400,000 in sales each year, you will have to pay $150 each month for each additional $200,000 of yearly sales (up to $1 million).
When you hit the $1 million mark in annual sales, you will be upgraded to an Enterprise Plan by a dedicated BigCommerce account manager.
Overall, the Pro Plan includes many robust features. Customers can sort and filter by specific categories (also known as faceted search.) Additionally, this plan allows store owners to add third-party SSL certificates to customize your checkout.
Enterprise Plan
The BigCommerce Enterprise Plan, often referred to as the “VIP” plan, is reserved for retailers generating more than $1 million in annual sales.
This plan offers superior features, including priority support, custom filtering options, a staging development environment and a dedicated account manager. This resource is available to answer any questions, resolve issues and help you grow and optimize your online store.
This plan starts at $1,000 per month. In order to get an exact price, you will need to contact BigCommerce and request a quote.
BigCommerce Costs vs. Competitors
Generally speaking, BigCommerce offers significant savings compared to its competitors. As a SaaS platform, BigCommerce eliminates the need for businesses to pay for hosting, patching, security and updates.
Additionally, BigCommerce does not lock customers into using their payment gateway and does not charge transaction fees. Merchants can choose from a selection of 40 integrated payment gateways without incurring any extra charges or fees (differing from Shopify). The only fee merchants can expect is the usual credit card charge of 2.2% + 30 cents.
The largest competitors of BigCommerce are Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and Volusion. All of these platforms are priced very differently from one another and offer varying functionality.
Shopify
- Basic: $29 per month plus 2.9% and 30 cent transaction
- Shopify: $79 per month plus 2.6% and 30 cent transaction
- Advanced Shopify: $299 per month plus 2.4% and 30 cent transaction
- Shopify Plus: $2,000+ per month plus 2.15% per transaction
Although Shopify's pricing is initially on the lower end compared to its competitors, many merchants fail to realize the transactional parts of Shopify’s plans. If you choose not to use the Shopify Payment processor, you can expect to pay around 3% plus 30 cents per transaction on your site (plus usual credit card charges).
In addition, Shopify also changes your turn over, ranging from 0.5% to 2.0%
Magento 2
- $0-$1M gross sales revenue - $22,000 per year
- $1-$5M gross sales revenue - $32,000 per year
- $5M-$10M gross sales revenue - $49,000 per year
- $10M-$25 gross sales revenue - $75,000 per year
- $25M-$50M gross sales revenue - $125,000 per year
Overall, there are three major drawbacks with Magento 2's pricing model. As a platform, Magento 2 is complex and labor intensive. It requires extensive technical knowledge to update and maintain.
Generally, merchants often end up spending the most money with Magento between license fees, hosting, security patches and regular maintenance. Although Magento may be a good fit for some merchants, we believe SaaS options, like BigCommerce, are a much wiser route for most mid-market retailers to pursue.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free, open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress. One of the reasons small online retailers choose WooCommerce over its competitors is because it’s, well, “free.” However, individual costs ultimately vary based on specific retailer needs.
- Hosting starts anywhere from $3.95/month to as high as $5,000/month.
- Purchasing your domain costs about $15/year.
- Themes cost anywhere from $20-$100/year
- Additional Communication, SEO and Security costs will vary based on business needs.
Overall, the prices begin to add up once you incorporate plugins and support. For example, checkout functions, payment gateways, shipping and marketing tools are plugins that come at a cost.
As a final word of warning, WooCommerce often struggles to scale with growing retailers. If your business sells more than $1 million online per year, we highly recommend looking into other platforms that are better equipped to handle your functional needs.
Volusion
Volusion is very similar to Shopify in terms of pricing.
- Four different tiers:
- Personal - $26/month
- Professional - $71/month
- Startup - $161/month
- Business - $269/month
In addition to your preferred pricing plan, Volusion also charges transactional fees of 0.5%-2.0% per transaction. Additional fees include credit card fees and add-on fees and exclusions.
Pricing Plan Summary
Overall, it’s important to keep in mind when evaluating a platform that even if it is cheaper up front, it is not always cheaper in the long run. We always encourage retailers to weigh each option thoroughly and keep in mind that your business goal is to grow.
The platform that is able to handle your company's growth and function properly without slamming your wallet with hidden fees is going to be the best option for your business.
Does BigCommerce Charge Transaction Fees?
No. BigCommerce does not charge transaction fees like Shopify does. Instead, BigCommerce charges a monthly fee. BigCommerce allows you to keep all of your profits and allows your store to keep growing.
BigCommerce Customer Support
BigCommerce gives you access to 24/7 live agent support for all plans. Having great customer service allows you to worry less about technical issues and, instead, focus your time and effort into your business’s marketing and sales.
Support can be contacted 24/7 via phone, live chat or email, which are all accessible through your store’s admin page.
Another great feature that BigCommerce allows you to access is the community page. This page is only welcomed to other BigCommerce users and helps retailers share issues they are facing. In our experience, it is a great community to help other users out and learn from each other.
Who is a Good Fit For BigCommerce?
BigCommerce can accommodate all different size eCommerce sites. Having four different pricing plans allow retailers to find a price that works for their specific needs. Whether you are a growing or Enterprise eCommerce company, the BigCommerce platform is built to help you grow.
Overall, BigCommerce has an impressive amount of built-in tools and features to support your online store. On top of that, it has powerful reporting tools that make it easy to keep track of your store’s successes and areas for improvement.
Conclusion
BigCommerce is a leading eCommerce platform that provides flexibility and scalability for online stores. Additionally, BigCommerce has more built-in sales tools than any of its competitors and combines these features with advanced SEO and fantastic multichannel integrations.
Whether you are just starting to sell online or are thinking about replatforming your current site, choosing a platform is a difficult decision with many options.
BigCommerce's pricing plan is built with merchant growth in mind. Furthermore, this platform comes with the tools, features and functionalities business need to elevate their online stores.
Not sure if BigCommerce is the right platform for you? They offer a free 15-day trial for you to explore hands on how it works. You are able to request a one-on-one demo with a representative from BigCommerce to go over the features and functionalities for a better understanding.
Feel free to drop us a line through the form below and we’ll be happy to help you get one set up!
